All language subtitles for BBC.The.Great.War.09of26.Please.God.Send.Us.A.Victory.divx.mp3

The year 1915 came in
with sleet and mud.

In the brief pause of winter,

the motionless armies of both sides
waited.

The British Government surveyed
the ruin of the war's early hopes,

and took stock of the future.

Grave doubts now replaced
the first bright optimism.

Powerful minds applied themselves
to strategy and tactics.

Was the deadlock
of the Western Front permanent?

Could it be broken?

Would the French offensive succeed
in thrusting the Germans back?

Some doubted.
Lord Kitchener was one.

"The German lines in France
may be seen as a fortress
that cannot be completely invested.

"The lines may be held
by an investing force,

"whilst operations go on elsewhere."

Operations elsewhere, but where?
The Baltic? The Mediterranean?

In the first days of August 1914,

the German cruiser Breslau and

the new battle cruiser Goeben
had been in the Mediterranean.

16 British warships closed in
on them.

To escape capture,
the German ships raced to Turkey,

a neutral state,
but one with pro-German sympathies.

Germany offered the ships to Turkey.

Their commander became
a Turkish admiral.

The chief of staff of Turkey's army
was German,

with another German in charge
of training.

Under a figurehead sultan,
Turkey was ruled by Enver Pasha.

His power was absolute,
but dependent on German support.

His ambitions were grandiose.

In October 1914, Enver Pasha had
committed the Goeben and Breslau

to shell Russian ports in the Black
Sea and sink all ships in their way.

By 30th October, Turkey was at war
with the Allied powers.

The British War Council considered
a naval attack on the Dardanelles.

Here, the prizes of success
seemed glittering indeed.

Egypt and the Suez Canal would be
secured, Italy and the Balkan
states would join the Allies,

and Russia would be able
to import munitions

from the Western Allies and America.

And Russia's huge stores of grain,

bottled up in the Black Sea ports,
would be released.

It was indeed an attractive project.

On January 14th, 1915, the British
War Council's mind was made up.

"The Admiralty should prepare
for a naval expedition in February

"to take the Gallipoli peninsula,

"with Constantinople as its target."

The naval attack opened
on 18th February, 1915.

For two weeks, the British
and French fleet tried to destroy
the forts guarding the Dardanelles.

Hampered by bad weather,
they still made useful progress.

Marines and bluejackets went ashore,
blew up abandoned guns

and wrecked Turkish emplacements.

CANNONS FIRE

They met only light opposition.

The task seemed easy.

"The greatest satisfaction
was expressed at the Admiralty.

"I was surrounded by smiling faces."

Unexpected difficulties now arose.

Forts apparently silenced
came to life again.

New Turkish guns appeared.

Minefields impeded
the Allied battleships.

Unarmed trawlers sweeping for
mines were driven off by gunfire.

Doubts about the Navy's ability to
finish the job alone began to grow.

In London, Lord Fisher,
the First Sea Lord, said,

"The Dardanelles?
Futile without soldiers.

"Someone will have to land
at Gallipoli."

But where could soldiers be found?

Lord Kitchener, weighing the needs
of the Western Front,
faced a difficult decision.

There were troops in Egypt,
the Australian and New Zealand
Army Corps,

Indians, and British territorials.

Half-trained, ill-equipped,
they were not yet an army.

Something more had to be added -
a regular division.

Only the 29th remained, already
promised to the Western Front.

Reluctantly, Kitchener agreed
to release the 29th to Gallipoli.

The French government
also offered a division,
making 70,000 men ready for action.

As commander-in-chief, Kitchener
appointed Sir Ian Hamilton,

a general of great distinction for
whom the war had not found a role.

Kitchener told him:

"We are sending a military force to
support the fleet at the Dardanelles.

"You will command. If the fleet gets
through, Constantinople will fall.

"You will have won not a battle,
but the war."

On 18th March, Hamilton saw
the navy deliver its final assault
on the Narrows,

the strip of water eight miles long
and less than a mile wide

which was the gateway
to Constantinople.

It was early afternoon and
all was going well.

Suddenly, the French battleship
Bouvet blew up in a huge explosion

and vanished in two minutes,
taking with her nearly 700 men.

By the end of the day, three Allied
battleships had gone down.

Three more were damaged by gunfire.

The action was called off, and
the fleet retired from the Straits.

The Turkish gunners, down
to their last rounds of ammunition,
waited for the fleet to return.

The Turkish government
prepared to abandon the capital.

Then, as days passed
and the Allies failed to appear,

a fierce exultation
seized the Turks.

Enver Pasha crowed with confidence:

"I shall go down in history
as the man who demonstrated

"the vulnerability
of the British fleet."

Now, Turkish blood was up. The Turks
turned in fury of revenge

on the aliens in their midst,
the Armenians.

There were two million Armenians in
Turkey, Christians in a Muslim land,

and Christians whose homeland lay
partly in Turkey, partly in Russia.

Potential traitors, in Turkish eyes,
and tribal enemies for centuries.

In the weeks that followed, three
quarters of a million Armenians

were savagely exterminated.

Said Turkish minister, Talat Bey:

"The place we have sent them to
is nowhere.

"No Armenian can be our friend
after what we have done to them."

While this killing went on, reports
of an Allied military expedition
in Egypt poured into Constantinople.

Enver Pasha handed command
of the Gallipoli peninsula
to the German, Liman von Sanders.

Von Sanders had six
Turkish divisions,

not enough
to cover the whole coastline,

but he placed them to concentrate
against any dangerous landing.

A crash programme of training
and defence works followed.

Time was precious. The Turks worked
and waited.

But no-one came.

In Egypt, the expeditionary force
struggled against disorganisation.

Everything had to be improvised.

SHIP HORN BLOWS

In the intervals of work and
training, Egypt offered diversions.

Spirits were high. The war was
young and new for these warriors.

Hamilton decided to confront von
Sanders with six landings at once.

At the same time, two diversions
would add to the Turks' confusion.

The French would land on
the Asiatic shore and then withdraw.

And a mock assault would be made

on the neck of the peninsula
at Bulair by the Navy.

The moment drew near.

The excitement of the adventure
ahead seized men's minds.

Rupert Brooke, the poet turned
soldier, expressed the feeling:

"I suddenly realised
that my life's ambition

"has been to go on a military
expedition against Constantinople.

"Oh, God, I've never been so happy.
Like a stream flowing to one end."

But Brooke fell sick, and died
before the expedition sailed.

As the great armada pulled away
amid cheering from the troop ships

to the battlefields of classical
antiquity and the Golden Horn,

Sir Ian Hamilton wrote in his diary:

"Almighty God,
watchman of the Milky Way,

"shepherd of the golden stars,
have mercy upon us,

"smallest of the heavenly shiners.

"Our star burns dim
as a corpse light.

"The huge black chasm of space
closes in.

"If only by blood, thy will be done.

"En avant, at all costs, en avant!"

The first landings
were at Gaba Tepe,

where the peninsula narrowed
to a bare four miles.

At 4am on April 25th,

the boats cast off from warships
and troop ships,

bearing their loads of soldiers
towards the dark and hostile shore.

For these men,
this was a culminating moment.

These were Anzacs,
entering their first battle,
determined to make a name.

From the gentle pastures
of New Zealand,

the turmoil of Sydney,
the dignity of Melbourne

and the wide spaces of Queensland,
they came not just to fight Turks,

but to lodge their youthful nations
in the great affairs of the world.

'It was pitch dark.

'Then suddenly, a dim outline
of the coast loomed up.'

As we got closer, we were all
getting tensed up and nervous,

wondering what would happen,
as everything was so quiet.

Then a single shot rang out,

and a yellowish light flared up.

From then, everything was let loose.

Machine-gun and rifle fire
came direct at the boats.

They cast us off, the multiple
oarsmen took up the row,

and we were rowed ashore.

As soon as the boats grounded,
it was every man for himself.

As we scrambled ashore, those
that were lucky enough to get there,

we found what cover under the cliff
we could.

As we lay there for a few moments,
gathering our wind,

we slipped off our back,
fixed our bayonets,

and someone in the crowd said,
there was no-one in charge,

the order was, "Right, lads.
After the bastards!"

RAPID GUNFIRE

At five o'clock that morning,
Liman von Sanders was roused
with a series of alarming reports.

The Allies had arrived.

Von Sanders galloped off to Bulair.

There he remained all day, waiting
for the landing that never came.

The first diversion
was a complete success.

So was the second.

The French landed easily
on the Asiatic coast and took
500 prisoners before they withdrew.

Opposite the French at S beach,
the landing was also successful.

At Y beach, on the further flank,
2,000 men went ashore
without a casualty.

But they did not press inland.

At W beach the Lancashire Fusiliers
fought their way ashore

through dense barbed wire,
under murderous fire,

giving their name to this
battlefield - Lancashire Landing.

MACHINE-GUN FIRE

By evening, they had linked up with
the men at X beach, further north.

But the high drama of the day
was elsewhere.

At 6am on 25th April, naval
bombardment lifted over V beach,

and a floating Trojan horse
neared the tip of Cape Helles.

In broad daylight,
the collier SS River Clyde,

with 2,000 troops aboard,
grounded herself gently offshore.

Doors opened in her side,
ramps came down,

Dublin and Munster Fusiliers
poured forth.

Seconds later, 20 boats loaded with
more fusiliers, scraped the sand.

It was very quiet.

But the Turks were ready.

They opened up on the shore
and there was firing -

not only machine guns - rifle fire.

They had these nice little pom-pom
shells, all nice painted colours.

Beautiful things.

They was hitting off the side
of the ship and ripping...

..people to pieces.

Even the bullets, if they missed you,
was hitting the ship...

..tearing pieces out of them.

Three-and-a-half hours later,
barely 200 men were ashore.

These were trapped in a small area
of safety beneath a low sandbank.

The brigadier was dead.

The survivors crouched behind
the plates of the River Clyde
and waited for nightfall.

Flying overhead, an Allied airman
looked down and reported the water
was absolutely red with blood.

V beach had been a catastrophe.

Not until the following day,
after bitter fighting, did the
British capture this beach.

To the north, the dawn of the first
day found isolated groups of Anzacs
chasing a fleeing enemy.

By eight o'clock time,
we were well advanced.

I should say somewhere
between a mile, a mile and a half.

And later in the morning, we got
well across to the peninsula -

we could see the coast
of the Narrows.

But now, a Turkish colonel
arrived on the slopes of Sari Bair.

His name was Mustafa Kemal.
Kemal realised at once

that this ridge was the key to the
southern half of the peninsula

and the enemy must be driven off it.

He rallied the retreating
Turks and sent for reinforcements.

His orders were uncompromising.

'I don't order you to attack.
I order you to die.'

The Anzacs
were forced off the ridge.

By the end of the day, 15,000 men
were crowding into the Anzac
bridgehead - two miles long.

On a narrow beach, barely 1,000
yards long and 30 yards wide,

supplies and equipment piled up.

From the cliffs came the wounded,
choking the incoming traffic.

It was the most precarious position
a bloke could find himself in.

You sort of made up your mind -

"Well, we're here and the only way
he can get us off is by carrying us
off feet first."

Altogether, there were 30,000 men
ashore on Gallipoli.

Casualties had been heavy
but that was expected.

More serious was the fact
that none of the main landings
had achieved their objectives.

Now everyone stood by for the
Turkish counterattacks against
those frail footholds of the Allies.

At Gallipoli,
the battle flared up again.

On 18th May the Turks, outnumbering
the dominion troops by three to one,

tried to wipe out
the Anzac bridgehead.

In great hulking mass -
they were rather big men, the Turks -
a fine body of men.

As they came over in two great waves,

they were shouting
and blowing their trumpets

and whistling and shouting
like schoolboys.

As they got closer,
within nice rifle range,

we had the order to fire.

We opened fire with rapid fire
and brought them down in hundreds.

Hundreds of them fell.

In front of our trench,
when the attack was over,

there would be up to 3,000 dead
and dying in front of our brigade.

They were lying there
for about three or four days.

The smell got so awful.

We prayed that the wind would blow
in from the sea and take the stench

of the dead over into the Turkish
trenches instead of our own

as the stench got so awful
at that time.

For both sides, infection
and disease were now the dangers.

A front-line armistice was arranged.

Anzacs and Turks worked together
to bury the dead in large,
communal graves.

I wasn't one of those burying
the dead, but I sat on the parapet

and afterwards, I walked over
and offered bully beef to one Turk

and he smiled
and seemed very pleased

and passed me a whole string, two
strings of dates, I think it was.

Three weeks after the landings,

Hamilton launched a major attack
to take the first day's objectives -

the village of Krithia
and the high ridge of Achi Baba.

RAPID MACHINE GUN FIRE

The attack failed.

By the end of May,
Hamilton's British casualties
alone totalled 38,000 men,

and he cabled London
for more troops, more ammunition.

Touring the Anzac bridgehead
at that time, Hamilton saw...

"Men staggering under huge sides of
frozen beef.

"Men struggling up cliffs
with kerosene tins full of water.

"Men digging, men cooking.

"Men card-playing in small dens
scooped out from the banks
of yellow clay.

"Everyone wore a bank holiday air.

"Evidently the wranglings
and worryings of mankind,

"miseries and concerns of the spirit,
had fled the precincts of the valley.

"The boss, the bill, the girl,
envy, malice, hunger, hatred,

"had scooted away to the Antipodes."

But there was another side to the
picture and Hamilton saw that too.

"All the time,
from that fiery crest line,

"there comes a constant trickle
of wounded.

"Some dragging themselves painfully,
others being carried on stretchers.

"Bomb wounds all. A ceaseless,
silent stream of bandages and blood.

"Yet three out of four of the boys
have grit left for a gay smile
or a cheery nod to their comrades,

"waiting for their turn as they
pass, pass, pass, down on their way
to the sea."

The ding-dong struggle continued
all through June and July.

By 1st August, each side had lost
57,000 - killed and wounded.

Each battle held its nightmare of
shadeless heat and dust and death.

EXPLOSIONS AND GUN FIRE

Soon a cynical prayer
was passed along the front line -

"Please, God, send us a victory,
but not in our sector."

The smell of death thickened
in the blinding sun,

and the strain of living day to day
under enemy eyes took its effect.

During the day we could see
the vultures heading down
towards the bodies.

Both Turks and their own men, and
occasionally, we would take a pot
shot at them to keep them off,

particularly if we thought there
was somebody wounded out in front.

But we couldn't fire too much for
fear of giving away our own position.

The Turks had very good
observation posts

and could see practically everything
that we did.

Water was very scarce
and when the summer came,

it brought the disease
and the flies with it.

The rations were nothing -
only bully beef and apricot jam.

And when we did get the summer,
the jam was a regular issue -

nothing else but apricot.

When you opened that,
it was almost like water -

you had to pour it
onto your biscuit.

Before you could get that to your
mouth, it was literally covered
with flies.

You held the biscuit in one hand
and waving flies off with the other.

Lethargy settled over the beaches
between the battles.

1,000 men a week went down
with dysentery.

It was a very weakening thing.
We walked about like skeletons,

finding it difficult
even to move at times.

And, of course,
if anyone was out of the line,

there were heavy things to lift,

er...on fatigue,

water-carrying
and helping to dig roads.

It was as much as we could do
to lift the tool or whatever it was
that we were carrying.

In faraway London, the ripples
of Gallipoli made themselves felt.

Lord Fisher resigned
and the Conservatives insisted
Churchill should go too.

The shell shortage persisted.

The Liberal Government fell.

Gallipoli drew in more troops,
more ammunition needed
on the Western Front.

The War Council agreed Hamilton
could have five more divisions
ready for action by the end of July.

But by then, the equivalent
of ten new Turkish divisions
had dug in and were waiting.

The ripples of Gallipoli
touched more than politics,

they touched the hearts of men

and worked their changes
on human nature itself.

To the Allied soldiers fighting
on the peninsula,

the Turks displayed not only
fanatical bravery, but chivalry too.

The half-affectionate nickname
Johnny Turk was born.

The Turkish soldier
was very highly regarded

by me and all the men
in our...on our side.

He was a clean fighter and one of
the most courageous men in the world.

When they came,
there was no beating about the bush.

They faced up to the heaviest rifle
fire that you could put up

and nothing would stop them, they
were almost fanatical.

We came to the conclusion that
he was a very good bloke indeed.

We had lot of time for him.

The British virtues also revealed
themselves - the extraordinary
talent for improvisation.

For making a harbour
on an open shore.

Making bombs out of jam tins.

Turning a hole in the gully
into a little bit of a home.

Making a barrage
without enough guns or shells.

The British also revealed their
traditional stubbornness in defeat.

But there was a sense of sickening
disappointment. The failure of
the Navy could not be disguised.

When German submarines sunk two
battleships in the Mediterranean,

the rest of these great vessels
scurried to safety to their
harbours.

As they steamed away, they took
most of the hope that was left.

The glittering prize of
Constantinople began to fade away.

Ian Hamilton had one last shot
in his locker.

One more flanking attack
up the peninsula - another landing.

More reinforcements arrived,
including three divisions
of Kitchener's new army,

who had the virtues and faults of
this great volunteer force,

its eagerness, its devotion,
its lack of training.

Its ardent young soldiers...

..and its elderly generals.

On August 6th,

the new Army divisions landed
at Suvla Bay by a dry salt lake.

It was a complete surprise.

The way across the peninsula
was open.

CRASH AND RUMBLE OF EXPLOSIONS

MACHINE GUN FIRE

But the untrained soldiers,
and their bewildered leaders,
failed to push on.

Hundreds brewed tea and bathed
while vital hours slipped away.

On their right, the Anzacs were
waging their bitterest battle -

Lone Pine.

The fighting went on for two days.

At the end, the Turks still held
the commanding heights of Sari Bair.

This meant the British new army
divisions could not advance either,

even when they found out what
to do and where to go.

Muddle and missed chance
had prevailed again.

The expedition was still blocked.

This was the end of hope.

Ian Hamilton wrote,

"An ugly dream came to me last night.
I was being drowned,

"held violently
under the Hellespont.

"For hours afterwards,
I was haunted by the thought
that the Dardanelles were fatal -

"that something sinister was afoot -
that we, all of us, were pre-doomed."

Yet for weary months,
the armies stayed.

It was trench warfare now -

barbed wire, snipers, machine guns,
boredom.

Like France, yet not like France.

Gallipoli was further away.

No-one who went there
ever came home on leave.

From Dover to Calais - 22 miles.

From Dover to Cape Helles -
3,000 miles.

On Gallipoli, in 37 weeks,
31,000 Allied soldiers were killed,

73,000 were wounded,
93,000 went sick.

For the wounded and sick,
there were the flyblown
casualty clearing stations.

bathing in the sea
became an inexpressible joy.

To get away from the flies,
wash off the dirt and dust,

to feel cool again.

One said, "In some ways,
it was a curiously happy time."

In October, Ian Hamilton was
recalled and his successor,

General Monroe, arriving from the
Western Front, toured the beaches
and came to a swift decision.

The peninsula must be evacuated.

Winston Churchill said,

"He came, he saw, he capitulated."

But there was no escaping facts.

Kitchener went to Gallipoli to see
for himself. His conclusion was...

"Well, I've seen the place.

"It's an awful place
and you'll never get through."

So the bitter decision was reached.

Evacuation.

But Gallipoli had one
last extraordinary trick
to play on the defeated Allies.

After all the miseries of heat
and flies and diarrhoea,

a blizzard in November put 15,000
men out of action with frostbite.

It was the worst storm
for 40 years.

And now they came to the last act
on Gallipoli.

120,000 men, thousands of animals,
hundreds of guns.

What would become of them all?

The evacuation plan
was a masterpiece.

Ironic success
in the midst of utter failure.

Every ruse was employed to persuade
the Turks that things were normal.

Troops bathed and played games,

reliefs and ration parties went on
with empty boxes.

Automatic devices fired rifles
sporadically along
the emptying trenches.

With sacking around their boots to
dull the sound, the soldiers left.

The Australian, General Monash
described their departure:

"Down dozens of little gullies
leading back from the front lines

"came groups of six to a dozen men,

"the last closing the gully
with barbed wire.

"All these columns kept joining up,

"like rivulets flowing
into the main stream.

"At last they coalesced
into four continuous lines.

"There was no check, no halting,
no haste or running,

"just a steady, silent tramp
in single file,

"without any lights or smoking.

"And every yard brought us
nearer safety."

83,000 men were taken off
from Suvla and Anzac in December,
without a casualty.

In January, the whole performance
was repeated at Cape Helles.

The tears streamed down my cheeks.

I just couldn't restrain 'em.

My eyes smarted. I walked the rest
of the way with my eyes closed.

I knew it so well and I couldn't
go short, I was in a trench.

As we got further from the line,
near Backhouse Post,

I remember the advance we had
on May 6th,

when more of my pals,

Petty Officer Warren and young Yeats.

I could even hear young Orton
crying for his mother as he died.

I remember Colonel Coulter.
Great big chap, legs thin as a poker,

guards officer.

I remember him leading the advance
and going to his death

armed with a huge walking stick.

He told us before he landed,
when we were on the boat,

that the eyes of the world
would be upon us.

The eyes of the Turks certainly were

and so were their rifles.

But the world has forgotten us.

Another said,
as he set off towards the boats,

"I hope they won't hear us
going down to the beaches."

On the beaches, the last stores
blazed, the ammunition exploded.

The great adventure was over.

The war went on,
mounting to new ferocity.

No rest for the gaunt survivors.

Rest only for the unforgotten dead.